Institutions Aren’t Enough: Troglodytes and the Role of Virtue in a Democracy

The brutal assault on our democracy by Trump, Musk, and their confederates has made it clear that institutions aren’t enough. A democracy needs people who speak up, speak out, and do the right thing. Where do those people come from?

The text to read for our next meeting on March 4 is a few pages from Montesquieu’s novel, Persian Letters. The letters we’ll read are allegorical: while they tell the story of the Troglodytes, a mythical people, they tackle the problems of virtue, society and law.

Why Montesquieu?

Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu was a towering figure of the French Enlightenment. A lawyer, scholar, and traveler, he was the author of one of the books most read and debated by American political thinkers in the tumult of the founding of the American republic. That book, The Spirit of the Laws, published in 1748, was credited with giving the founders of the American republic some of their most important insights about the nature of power and government.

Opponents and proponents of the Constitution alike cited Montesquieu approvingly. James Madison, in Federalist LXVII, famously wrote,

The oracle who is always consulted and cited on this subject is the celebrated Montesquieu. If he be not the author of this invaluable precept in the science of politics, he has the merit at least of displaying and recommending it most effectually to the attention of mankind.

In our time, we all see the relentless and ruthless war on the separation of powers waged by a man who would be king. It’s important to remind ourselves of the importance of the legislative power and the indispensable role of a free judiciary.

Persian Letters

But Montesquieu was about more than the physics of government. He was interested in the world around him; he was curious about the origins of virtue—and the roots of vice. And he explored those questions in Persian Letters, one of the great novels of the early 18th century, published (anonymously) in 1723. This was an epistolary novel—that is to say, it was a series of letters (roughly 150) purportedly written by two Persians, Usbek and Rica, who leave their home of Isfahan in Persia to visit France. (We learn very early on in the novel that Usbek is forced to flee Persia because of palace intrigue.) Ribald, caustic, funny, erotic, and profound, the book was a smashing success.

The Troglodytes letters are in the form of an allegory; you don’t need much background to make sense of them. Letter 10 sets them up: Usbek’s friend Mirza want to know about virtue:

Yesterday the subject under discussion was whether men
are made happy by pleasure, and the satisfaction of the senses, or by
the practice of virtue. I have often heard you say that men were born
to be virtuous, and that justice is a quality which is as proper to them
as existence. Please explain to me what you mean.
I have asked our mullahs about it, but they drive me to desperation
with their quotations from the Koran: for I am not consulting them
as a true believer, but as a man, as a citizen, and as a father.¹

There’s lots to glean from Usbek’s response, lots to think about—and, I believe, lots to learn about what we need to do to give new life to our civic virtue. Please read them carefully—and enjoy them!

Discussion Questions about the Letters

• What is the nature of (political) virtue?
• Where does political virtue come from? (Are people born good?)
• Is corruption a source of power?
• How should we think about the rule of law?
• How should we think about the relationship between religion and society?
• Is altruism for suckers?

From Ideas to Actions

A note: Montesquieu wasn’t sitting in an ivory tower, musing about airy-fairy abstract notions. He was engaged in the politics of his region (Bordeaux) and the political life of his country (France). He travelled. He talked. He wrote. And he changed minds.

The challenge for our discussion: how to turn what we talk about into action.

1. Montesquieu, Persian Letters (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1993), 53. ↩︎